#VB and Charts
11 messages in this thread
Does anyone know of a good chart building program that I can call from VB?
I have used ChartBuilder from Pinnacle Publishing but it has a few
limitations that I can't live with. We need to incorporate graphs into our
application and then print them with as high a resolution as the printer
can handle. We are printing line charts, bar charts and mountain charts in
log scale.
Thanks
There are 3 Replies.
Jim:
Ummm, how about Excel? You can use DDE to get to / from Excel.
I too have hit the limitations of chart builder fairly early on. I spoke
with the designers of CB at the London Windows Expo this week but they
don't seem too eager to make any useful changes. There was a vague mention
of some new developments next year but who can wait that long.
Because of this I have now decided to to write my own graphs using picture
boxes and the standard graphics methods (I did this before in QB so its
just a question of porting and making a little more generic). However, if
someone comes out with a bolt-on charting package with similar facilities
to Excel or Wingz they can have my money NOW!
Graham
There are 2 Replies.
Rolling my own is an option, just not a great one. Something about
reinventing the wheel. I have used a run time version of Graph-in-the-Box
in our DOS version of our package and had great success with it. They are
slow in coming out with any kind of Windows product and they charge a
distribution fee.
I have just contacted a company called The Crossley Group about something
called "Developer's Business Graphics Toolkit". Do you know anything about
it?
-jjh
There is 1 Reply.
Re: Developers Business Graphics Toolkit
No, never heard of it but the title sounds promising. Please keep me
informed if you get any more details.
Graham
If the ChartBuilder control is too limiting why not take the next step with
the Graphics Server SDK, a separate product that is actually the "engine"
behind ChartBuilder. It doesn't operate as a control but the functions can
be called from within VB just like any other DLL. It has low level
routines for drawing your axis,labels and legends, and opening/closing
graphics windows and views.
Jon Fleming Pinnacle Tech Support
Will it let me create area charts with semi-log scaling and place several
lines of text above and below the chart? Also, I would like to display the
numeric values with commas.
Thanks for your advice.
-Jim
There is 1 Reply.
Graphics Server will let you produce log/log and log/linear graphs and
position text anywhere in a window but it is not as easy to use as the
ChartBuilder control. There are certain Graphics Server functions that can
not be called directly from VB (because they require arrays of strings) so
many of these functions will be built into future versions of ChartBuilder.
There is 1 Reply.
Jon,
What kind of array of strings? -=- Jonathan
Hi Jim,
I've only seen a demo of chartbuilder and I have not used it for
printed output at all. Do you know if Excel will meet your needs for
output and graphing? If you use DDE and link to a chart you may be able to
get what you need. Even if you have to buy Excel it would probably not
cost any more than a graphing/charting tool.
–Gregg
Excel will print the charts that I need, but I am developing a commercial
application that will be distributed to 15,000 users. I can't count on all
of them owning a copy of Excel.
Thanks anyway.
-Jim